


Windowpane

by scrappaperscribbles



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Feelings Realization, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Headcanon, Light Angst, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:55:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29679429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrappaperscribbles/pseuds/scrappaperscribbles
Summary: In light of realizing his crush on Akaashi, Bokuto comes up with a fool-proof plan. Let’s just hope it backfires.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Comments: 8
Kudos: 16





	1. A Tap on the Glass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing in first person is yucky! And gross! So here's this I think.

It is quite the unpleasant disruption from routine to discover that you are on the verge of being maddeningly and embarrassingly in love with one of your closest friends, or so Bokuto thinks. He cannot tell whether it is the thought itself that’s unpleasant or the fact that it took two spikes to the groin for him to realize it, but when he clutches at his abdomen and collapses to the ground for the second time during that afternoon’s practice, something decidedly sour rises in his throat.

Okay, pause. Rewind. 

For the past few weeks, Bokuto had started to notice that he was developing a slight problem. A problem that only seemed to manifest itself whenever Akaashi was around. Symptoms included: The need to turn away from Akaashi in the locker room lest Bokuto become a fizzled out puddle of blush and embarrassment; throat feeling like he had swallowed too much bakery bread too fast, and had no water nearby to chug the feeling away; a heightened awareness that he had hands, and a much more heightened awareness that, off the court, he had absolutely no clue what to do with them; sudden strange urges including, but not limited to, wanting to run his finger along the ends of Akaashi’s eyelashes, or lightly pull at the slight curl of his hair instead of the usual ruffle he would sometimes give it.

So yeah. This new problem was kind of becoming a bit of a pain in the ass, and a lot of a flutter in the heart, both of which were blocking him from going about business as usual. 

It’s not like problems were a stranger to Bokuto though, so he already had a method for tackling them.

The first step was to set up a goal. In this case, the goal was to minimize the feeling of having only half of a mushy brain cell whenever he was around Akaashi. Which- from practices, to lunch, to walking back home, and sometimes staying over- was a lot of the time. Thus was presented the urgency of the goal: He needed to achieve this as soon as Bokutoly possible.

The second step was the key to accomplishing any goal, and that was establishing a routine. Bokuto needed to set habits in place that would evict the colony of moths that had recently decided to take up residency in the pit of his stomach. 

The routine was as follows:  
-Get to practice half an hour earlier than usual and offer to clean up after late night practices in order to avoid what he had fittingly dubbed, The Locker Room Situation.  
\- Make sure to go on SUPER long rambles to loosen and dislodge the knot in his throat. This is both very easy, and very much within the realms of ordinary for him. Overall, a very effective tactic, he appraised.  
\- The weather was getting considerably colder so hands could be kept in pockets to avoid the uncertainty of what people usually do with such tactile appendages. Spring and summer could be a later concern.  
\- During captain and vice-captain meetings, team outings, walks back home and homework sessions, always make sure to keep a minimum distance of one and a half feet from Akaashi. Though the unfamiliar urges may still rise, the distance will be enough of a deterrent to quell them. 

One may read the stages of this routine and say, “Hey, I think these are all sort of avoiding the problem instead of actually sitting down and dealing with it,” and in saying that, one would be absolutely correct. 

In Bokuto’s defence, in his long and gruelling seventeen years of life, he has never had a proper crush. The men and women on the covers of his sisters’ magazine collections are admittedly attractive, on the rare occasion he gets confessed to he does feel heavily flattered, he doesn’t mind sitting and listening to Sarukui as he recounts his exploits (read: failures) of trying to woo the girls volleyball team captain, and he had done surprisingly well in English during his first year due to much of the attention he paid in class being afforded by the very welcome size of his teacher’s bust.

These half-baked experiences make up the repertoire of Bokuto’s romantic encounters. So one day when he missed a spike because he was too caught up in staring at the light threading of veins on Akaashi’s inner wrists, he was too ill-equipped to chalk it up to him having a pathetic and fat crush on the setter. 

All up to speed? Great, back to regularly scheduled programming.

During that afternoon’s practice, he goes about his newly adopted routine, not noticing the furrow-browed glances Akaashi occasionally throws his way. The great moment of revelation starts unveiling itself during an end of practice three-on-three. Akaashi is on the other side, which Bokuto’s fine with because he can now stare at the lines of his legs while making it seem like he’s assessing the court. He’s mentally patting himself on the back for his crafty multi-tasking, running to receive a spike while watching the flex of Akaashi’s calf, until he turns and realizes that his arms aren’t positioned correctly and oh no that ball is a little too low for a chester and _OOF_! 

“Oy lover boy, you could’ve gotten that if you weren’t so busy staring at your boyfriend,” Komi sneers, having absolutely no sympathy for his fallen teammate. Bokuto huffs, trying to gather his bearings in light of the throbbing pain, and really Komi should at least offer to help his _captain_ up and hey wait-

“Boyfriend?!” Konoha and Sarukui muffle their snickers across the net as Bokuto’s exclamation echoes throughout the gym. 

“Bokuto-san, believe it or not, but it’s actually very hard to play volleyball while seated,” Akaashi deadpans. His mouth has a wry upturn but he still looks mildly concerned and Bokuto wants to pinch the end of his flushed nose and- boyfriend? Akaashi opens his mouth again and Bokuto has always known it to be chapped, but wow, it does look really soft. What would it be like to press his thumb against it, or better yet- “If you would mind getting up. If not for the sake of continuing to play, at least to pass us back the ball.”

“Yeah,” Bokuto nods dumbly, rising up to roll the ball back. Konoha and Sarukui have finally stopped snickering and are starting to watch his every move. It’s unnerving, and Bokuto forces himself to look away, only to end up glancing at Komi and then the pain in his lower half is suddenly off his mind because all he can think about is that dreaded word-

Boyfriend?

He shakes his head and tells himself to focus on the game at hand, but focusing on the game means inevitably looking at Akaashi and that’s when the gears start turning. 

_Lunches spent under their designated tree, and Bokuto noticing and commenting on Akaashi’s lack of protein as he places some of his egg into his setter’s bento. How else does he plan to grow any stronger and taller if he doesn’t eat like he means it? He makes sure to say that also. It’s important to care for Akaashi, after all. He also notices the way the stray hairs around Akaashi’s eyebrows fade,  
like a secret.  
He does not comment on that. _

The gears gently whirr as _plat!_ , Komi receives the ball. 

_A late night practice filled with one flubbed spike after another, followed by Bokuto trying to squeeze himself as small as possible into a corner. When he feels the steady gaze on him he props his chin on his arms, relishing in the gentle squish. “I don’t think I could spike it, even if my life and all of everybody else’s depended on it ‘Kaashi.” Akaashi blinks, like he’s filtering out each thought. When the silence does not end Bokuto ducks his head back into the miniature black hole he’s created. He’s counting his fourth breath when he hears the drop of limbs and feels the warm weight of a leg beside him. His ears tingle with trying to catch each sound as Akaashi lets out a tiny fond breath and then,  
“We’ll see.” _

The teeth of the gears start _click click click_ ing and then the whispering _swiff_ as Anahori sets the ball. 

_The inside of the bus is warm with the final scrapes of summer and the pocketing of hard-earned lessons and victories as it trundles back to the school, post-practice camp. Akaashi’s eyes have closed just the halfway more, and his head gently taps against Bokuto’s shoulder with each jostle of the bus. Late evening sunlight pours over Akaashi’s face, and when Bokuto looks down he thinks he feels every single vessel in his body swell half a millimeter more. The next night, while finishing their summer homework together, Bokuto looks up from the floor at Akaashi sitting at Bokuto’s desk (he was more comfortable on the floor anyway, he had insisted). The soft light from the desk lamp makes the slight push of Akaashi’s cheek when he smiles seem weightier. More like he means it. He bites down the smile as he does his classic literature homework.  
Watching him, Bokuto thinks Akaashi’s face always seems loved by sunlight. _

The gears are swiftly and soundlessly turning, and Bokuto’s running up on instinct, only slightly registering the subdued sting as his palm hits the ball, and the gears are rotating rotating rotating, and the ball doesn’t hit the other side with a _WHAM_ , instead it meets Konoha’s forearms with a razor sharp _fwap!_ , and he knows that means he has nothing to celebrate, but the gears have jolted to a stop and the view is set. 

He watches the unwavering focus in Akaashi’s darting eyes before he seems to come to a decision and pushes the ball off his fingers with precision.  
A toss with care. 

Oh. 

Bokuto seemingly gives up on assessing the court. He doesn’t even see who Akaashi tosses to, and really how can he when he’s internally reveling over the curve of Akaashi’s fingers, the raised hum of his voice as he calls out to whoever is spiking, the gentle landing of his feet back to the ground, all backed up with a _reason_ now, not just a fear.

Bokuto feels his heart slice open and spill out a hundred different colors. 

He should tell him right? That’s what people do, isn’t it? Now that he knows what these feelings are and can see the million different ways they burst out of him, it would only make sense to package them into a couple words and a few grand gestures to hand over to Akaashi. Right? 

Right. 

He should do it now. He quickly maps it out in his head. He’s not good with words like Akaashi, but Akaashi’s good at understanding so it’ll be fine. He sees the ball coming his way and he starts running towards it on instinct. He’ll say it right here, right now, okay …  
here it goes! The ball is out of his line of sight, but what does that matter when he’s got such big news? He opens his mouth so he can start saying _Akaashi, I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I-_

“Gggghhhiinnnn,” he groans out as the ball punches his groin for the second time that day. 

“You really don’t want kids, huh?” Konoha remarks, ducking under the net to assess the damage. Bokuto knows that’s his way of saying sorry. 

What Bokuto does not know is how to deal with the situation of Akaashi Keiji ( _Akaashi Keiji_ who he really _really_ likes. Romantically.) following Konoha and then crouching over and bringing his face close to Bokuto’s to ask if he’s okay and Bokuto-san can you hear me alright and… _oh no_ . This was not part of the routine, this was never the goal. Instead of being evicted, the moths are currently throwing the wildest rave in the history of the neighborhood of his organs.

Akaashi Keiji ( _Akaashi Keiji_ , one of his closest friends, if not his _best_ friend) is squatting in front of him and Bokuto doesn’t feel the way he thinks you should when you’re enamored with someone; like you can spike through a hundred-man block. 

Instead he feels like if he reaches out he’ll press too hard and break something very fragile yet very important. He’s breathing too fast. 

Akaashi must register the panic on his face, because he leans back and says, “Perhaps you should end practice early, Bokuto-san. You seem unwell.” He gets up and stares down at Bokuto. 

Bokuto had been so enraptured by the novelty of this feeling, in the lens it gave him to look at everything and marvel over how beautiful it all was, in the way it seemed to carry him off his feet and up,  
up,  
up that he hadn’t considered…

he hadn’t thought… 

He tries to channel all the happiness and confidence that he doesn’t feel (not one bit, not at all) as he beams up at Akaashi before hoisting himself back to his feet. “Don’t hurt your head worrying about me while I’m gone!”

The smile feels too stretched.

Bokuto tries to fill his mind with the _tmp tmp tmp THWACK!_ sounds zinging throughout the gym as he packs his things and gets changed. Just minutes ago he had felt like he was overflowing with a hundred different colors, but now he feels like nothing but a mess.

The lens had been snatched from him, and he’s too scared to press his fingers to the frame because he’s sure it’ll break. He keeps his strides long as he heads out of the gym, trying to make sure nobody sees the weight of his thoughts reflected on his face.

The door feels too easy to tug open.

As the door swings shut, Bokuto, full-hearted and lightheaded, continues to walk away from one side of it, and Akaashi -is he serving now? Asking Komi to please help clean up?

Bokuto can’t see what Akaashi’s doing-

and Akaashi is left on the other. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what functional purpose notes are supposed to serve, so from now on I will be using them to be my cute self because who's going to check me?  
> Anyway, I forgot how fun writing is! It feels nice to have Thoughts in my brain again. Maybe if I do it enough I can get better at it too!  
> In short: Gwah!!


	2. Shutting the Blinds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> changing up the spacing a bit. hm.

Nomura Mei is the center of the girls basketball team, has a warm and loud laugh, and she eats her lunch in her classroom, class 3-3. Bokuto is thankful for this last bit of information when he sticks his head past the doorframe and calls out her name. 

(His lower half still kind of hurts from yesterday and he doesn’t think he has it in him to go on a wild goose chase.)

She flashes him an easy grin as they walk to a more secluded part of the hallway, out of earshot from the chorus of “Oooo”s ringing around the classroom. 

_Stick to the plan._

The lonely walk down the hallway feels very deja-vu, and Bokuto notices she’s grown a couple inches taller and more broad-shouldered since the first time she’d asked him out in first year. That’s nice, he guesses. 

“So Bokuto, bored enough of ‘volleyball’ to finally accept my offer?” She teases. He doesn’t know why she put air quotes around volleyball, but he doesn’t really care because she’s just made his job way easier. He tells himself to put on his brightest grin. _Stick to the plan._

“Yeah, actually! That’s- I mean. Not bored of volleyball but. Uh. The offer! I accept your offer!” Articulate as ever.

His nerves buzz in time to the hum of the nearby vending machines.

Nomura still looks confused though, so he continues, “Well you know how you asked me out in first year and I said ‘sorry Nomura-san but I can’t accept your feelings,’” (it actually went more like, “WHAT?! That’s crazy!! You’re crazy!!! You’re also very pretty, but no. Hey, you wanna toss for me?”), “and you were really cool about it! Like, we’re still friendly and everything, and you kept joking about it afterwards and kept asking me out as a joke, but uhm. I’m still really busy with volleyball and everything, so I won’t have that much time but uh-” 

_Stick to the plan._

He forces himself to throw up the words, “I think I want to ask you out for real? Yeah. So.” He adds a small cough for finality.

The vending machines keep humming.

_Stick to the plan, stick to the plan, stick to the plan._ The grin is starting to make his cheeks ache. 

A laugh carries out of an adjacent classroom and he mentally curses himself for not coming up with a plan B, because if this doesn’t pan out like he needs it to, he won’t know how to go about making sure the glass doesn’t crack and at this point he’s willing to reach into his pocket and pull out his allowance and start beggi-

“Alright,” Nomura replies. Bokuto feels the wave that was rising beneath his lungs flush away. She’s smiling but her eyes don’t crinkle from it. Her eyelashes are short and curled, he notes. This is probably important information to know about the person you’re asking out. 

Nomura’s eyes (with short, curled eyelashes) roam around Bokuto’s face like she’s searching for something. 

Bokuto holds his face still to make it easier for her.

She seems to find it, because her eyes narrow for a second before she grins lazily back up at him. 

“I’m also busy with basketball and cram school so I won’t be chewing you out for anything,” she lightly punches his shoulder, and Bokuto briefly wonders if the action is something she should do, now that she’s all...you know, asked out and everything. “Honestly, we probably won’t be able to hang out all that much, but I think we can have fun together.”

At this, Bokuto grins and it doesn’t hurt his cheeks as much. Really and truly, Nomura is so _cool._ “Yeah! We can do that! I have to get back to class, but you already have my number so we can...er...sort things out whenever. I mean, today’s a rest day for me, so you can just… you know…” 

A group of girls passes by them, and one of them turns around to give Nomura a suggestive wink. 

Nomura laughs, warm and loud. She waves her hand dismissively, “Yeah, we can sort out the schematics later. Get back to class, captain.” 

Bokuto really doesn’t know what to do after that. He rolls back onto his heels in indecision. Should he hug her? High five? Shake her hand? He hadn’t really thought this part of the plan out. 

He settles for an eager wave and a jut of his thumb in the direction of his classroom. 

“Nice doing business with you!” She calls after his retreating back, and a shiver rattles down his spine because _can Nomura Mei read minds?_

*************

The Plan

Okay, so maybe his routine didn’t help to solve much. However, Bokuto has read enough manga and done enough cross shots to know that one failure is not a good enough reason to give up. 

He needs to devise a plan, he tells himself the afternoon he comes home from the practice that ended his bloodline with two shots. 

Like routines, plans need goals. He stares at the bars of sunlight on his bed, filtering through the blinds, willing them to rearrange themselves into some sort of helpful hint. 

He and Akaashi are _friends. Best_ friends. What kind of goal is he supposed to come up with?

The bars of light on his bed thin with the setting sun. 

_Lunches underneath their designated tree. Bokuto is carefully placing some of his egg into Akaashi’s bento._

_Akaashi is busy staring at his own lunch._

Bokuto feels something sharply place itself between him and Akaashi. 

_A late night practice, with Bokuto’s face warm from the heat of his furled up form. Akaashi sits beside him, but Bokuto doesn’t know what he looks like. Is Akaashi planning to go home? Bokuto wants him to stay._

_But does Akaashi want to stay?_

_Bokuto doesn’t know what Akaashi wants._

Bokuto tries to lean against the pane between him and Akaashi. He hears it creak, looks down to see a small crack, and quickly pulls away. 

_The sun-filled bus enters the highway, picking up its speed. Bokuto stares at Akaashi, bundled with sunlight._

_Akaashi’s eyes are closed._

The small wall clock ticks down the minutes, each _tch_ a command for the sun to go down, down, down. 

_Tch, tch, tch_

Bokuto shivers with the extra weight on his mind. 

He presses his palm against the night-chilled pane of his window. He’s crossed to one side, but Akaashi is still on the other. If Bokuto tries to reach for him, the glass might shatter and break, and what if Akaashi gets hurt? 

Or, what if Akaashi can’t see the glass and when Bokuto breaks it, all of Akaashi’s typical patience will run out, and instead of a light eye roll Akaashi will say, “Bokuto-san this is _inexcusable_ ,”

and then leaves?

And then Boktuo will have to just sit there among the shards. 

_Tch, tch, tch_

So the goal: Don’t break the glass. 

It hurts him a little (okay, a lot more than a little), but he thinks it’ll hurt more if Akaashi won’t be there to help pick up the pieces. It’s not like it's Akaashi's fault that he’s still on the other side anyway. 

Bokuto hums and presses his nose against his window. Maybe the plan should be to find someone who’s already on the same side as him. And that way he can stop peering in on Akaashi, because it’s not like you can _look_ someone into loving you. 

Find somebody who has already broken through, in one way or another, or maybe somebody where there was never any glass at all. Yeah. He can do that. That sounds doable. He wonders if it’ll help soothe the ache that’s started near his ribs. 

He tilts his eyes to the moon to see if it might agree, but a cloud slithers by in front of it, blocking any signs of celestial approval. He turns away, mildly offended. 

Right, so find somebody already on the other side. 

Staring at the muted glow of the lamp across the street, a warm laugh and easy smile come to mind. 

*************

Nomura Mei has large features that find their space on a narrow face, pin straight hair, and strong arms. She’s the opposite of shy, really good at calculus, and even better at explaining it with a calm and low voice. In their few years of loose friendship, these are all things Bokuto already knows. 

On their phone call that evening, he learns that she has an older brother, plans on quitting basketball in university, and has an obsession with anything chocolate flavoured. He also learns that he passes by her house on his way to school, they never have games on the same day, that she’s in the same class as Konoha and no, she won’t mind if Bokuto visits during lunch, as long as it isn’t every lunch. 

When they end the call, Bokuto is settled on two things: Nomura Mei is probably quite pretty, and Bokuto finds her fun to talk to. 

The moon observes him lying on his bed through the unshielded window and he scrunches his face at it.

_Take that!_

He wonders if he can pull the ache outside of him and hang it on the tip of the glowing crescent. 

*************

“I never knew you and Nomura walked to school together,” Komi directs at Bokuto in the locker room after morning practice. He pauses the buttoning of his uniform shirt. 

Well, they were going to find out one way or another. Might as well. 

“We didn’t. But her house is on my way to school. And we’re going out now, so.”

Bokuto glances around the quiet locker room. Most of his teammates are gaping at him. Even Washio has his brows raised. 

“You just cost me 800 yen, Bokuto!” Sarukui breaks the silence. 

There’s a sudden commotion as, to his surprise, almost every single member starts bumping into one another, either claiming or giving up certain amounts. He tries to find Akaashi, and instead hears the swift opening and closing of the locker room door. He shakes any wonders about Akaashi’s reaction out of his head. 

“You guys were making bets on my dating life?”

“Something like that,” Konoha belatedly replies, flipping the corners of the bills in his hands. 

“This wasn’t one of the possibilities though,” mutters Onaga, pulling cash out of his wallet to hand to… Washio? Even Washio is in on this?

“I’ll have you know that this is a sign of complete disrespect to your captain!” Bokuto tries to puff his chest out authoritatively. “I’ll make you all do an extra five laps for warm up in the afternoon! And that’s a promise!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Konoha waves away the threat with a makeshift fan of bills. 

Bokuto’s display of stomping out of the locker room is all show. If he’s upset about anything, it’s that he didn’t get to tell Akaashi that he won’t be eating lunch with him every day from now on. He doesn’t really care about the team making bets on him. He _is_ quite interested in what exactly the bet is about, but he knows he won’t get a proper answer. 

He'll make them do those extra five laps, though. A promise is a promise. 

*************

On the walk back home, Bokuto is very careful to not step on any cracks as he kicks pebbles down the street. He thinks it would be something like a bad omen before he breaks the news to Akaashi. 

He looks to his right at the houses that line the street. He wonders if they can feel his nervousness through all the windows, walls, and doors. He doesn't know _why_ he feels so nervous. It's just lunch, after all. Still, he feels like he's violating an unspoken agreement. 

“Akaashi,” he starts, once a particularly jagged pebble has been kicked off into the dark distance. 

Akaashi is looking up at the moon, but he gives a soft hum so Bokuto knows he’s listening. The moonlight seems to carve out his cheekbones and jaw, which typically go unnoticed on his round face. Like this, Bokuto thinks he looks very-

“Akaashi if I said you look _ethereal_ right now, would I be using the word correctly?”

Akaashi’s eyes snap to the ground, breaking the picture of moonlight loveliness. His brows furrow and he’s silent for a while before finally saying, “Is that the question you were intending to ask me, Bokuto-san?” 

Akaashi looks up at Bokuto, and _ah._ Bokuto had wondered where those dreaded moths in his stomach had wandered off to. 

“No,” he manages. It is very hard to say that word when Akaashi’s looking up at him like that. Bokuto turns away to get his thoughts together. “I just wanted to let you know that Nomura Mei and I- you know Nomura right? She’s on the girl’s basketball team and sometimes we have to split the gym with her and she’ll come over and talk and she’s kind of tall, you know being the center and all-”

Akaashi hums in assent to cut off Bokuto’s rambling. Yes, he knows Nomura. Bokuto knows this, also knows that Nomura’s even talked to Akaashi a couple of times. He reminds himself to breathe.

“Yeah uhm so. She and I are...we’re going out,” the words come out rushed and tripping over one another, and Akaashi’s eyes fall to the ground, but Bokuto continues, “and so uhm. I think sometimes I’ll be eating lunch with her. Not all the time though! I’ll definitely still eat with you! And Konoha’s in class 3-3, too so uhm…” 

Bokuto doesn’t know how to finish. He doesn’t think it was very wise to add that Konoha is in the same class as Nomura, because what if Akaashi thinks that Bokuto’s just trying to avoid him? Which, yeah, technically he is, but it’s really not because he dislikes him or anything.

Really. 

Akaashi huffs out an airy laugh. It’s missing something. “Is that all?” His eyes are still on the ground. “What do you sound so sorry for? _Finally_ , I’ll be able to hear myself think and have a meal in peace.”

“Akaaaashii!”

Akaashi lightly grins to himself, but Bokuto catches it. 

Still, like the laugh, it’s missing something.

“You don’t need to worry, I can be content on my own. I appreciate you telling me in advance, though.” Akaashi pauses before he adds:

“That was quite thoughtful of you, Bokuto-san.”

They part on the corner of the seventh streetlight and remain silent the whole way there. Akaashi is busy watching the ground and readjusting his grip on his backpack strap. 

Bokuto is busy replaying a word in his head. 

Akaashi Keiji, with his silent voice that never carries even half the ruminations of his mind, called Bokuto _thoughtful._

He carries the word in his mind, gently placing it beside his mental picture of the moonlight spilling over Akaashi’s face. 

_Thoughtful_ , said with a pink and straight-lined mouth. 

That night, Bokuto only remembers that he should probably call Nomura when he gets stuck on a math problem. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My brain is all empty space save for a cuckoo bird that pops out of its door at meal times, so despite any proofreading I will leave it up to the ambiguous powers of God and the state for this chapter to make sense. 
> 
> Talk to me on here to activate the cuckoo bird :p


	3. Under a Different Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> doop doop  
> this week has been a ceaseless assault of midterms, assignments, a family member in hospital, and a birthday so I present this chapter to you one year older, no years wiser, and 100 years more exhausted.

Like a light workout program, within two weeks Bokuto acclimates to his new routine. His days shift slightly to adjust to the walks to school, lunches spent in class 3-3, occasional joint homework sessions, and sometimes even game days. 

All is going smoothly, all is well. 

And still: He spends less time with Akaashi, but the time spent together still makes his chest seize up. The feeling never diminishes. 

Nomura is really cool. Her brother likes having Bokuto over, and lunches in class 3-3 always feel big, loud, and happy. Once he learns the rules, basketball is alright to watch- fun even, when the crowd is in high spirits. 

All is going smoothly, all is well. 

And still: He knows Nomura likes spending time with him. He likes spending time with her. He also likes spending time with Konoha, or Sarukui, or Kuroo. It never feels like something’s missing when he hangs out with Nomura until he remembers that they’re  _ going out _ ; then he feels uncomfortable each time she shoots him a smile. 

Maybe this is what it’s like to be with someone on the other side. Maybe the more time he spends, there’ll somehow be more of her, or more things to do together, and that will fill the particular Something that’s missing. Maybe. 

But during a lunch together, Akaashi, for the life of him, had not been able to catch a single grape in his mouth, no matter the trajectory Bokuto threw it in, and when he slammed his hand down on the grass in frustration, it came back up sticky and covered in splattered grape remains and Bokuto laughed and laughed and laughed, eyes tearing up from the growing chill of the wind, laughed even more when Akaashi brought his grape-y hand and smeared it under Bokuto’s chin; everything inside him had felt swollen, and full, and just a little too much. 

He has to remind himself: All is going smoothly, all is well. 

And still: Akaashi’s eyes close into a mess of crinkles when he laughs, even though the sound itself is soft. 

Whenever the question sprouts in his mind, he does his best to squash it down. But.

_ If time will not make Akaashi less, where is the promise that it will make Nomura more? _

************

The morning weather has become too cold to do any training outside. Bokuto waves Nomura off at the gym doors, watching little puffs of breath float above her as she jogs to the school’s main entrance, off to finish up homework in the library. He belatedly realizes her hair is in pigtails today. Maybe he should’ve commented on it; that is what couples do, after all. Nomura hadn’t seemed to mind though. Huh. 

Practice seems weightier than usual, with an unspoken tension making itself clear through furtive glances and accompanying whispers. During their first water break, Komi gets shoved near Bokuto and clears his throat. Bokuto doesn’t know why he does that, since he’s already looking at Komi anyway. Komi doesn’t cut any corners. 

“How many times have you and Nomura kissed?” 

Bokuto chokes on his water and the other moves to thump his back. Once Bokuto stops coughing, Komi looks down at him expectantly. 

“We haven’t,” Bokuto says. 

Now all eyes are on them, including (and of course Bokuto doesn’t miss it, was searching for it if anything) Akaashi’s. 

“You haven’t kissed yet?” Komi looks desperate. 

Bokuto scratches the back of his neck. He feels stupid for not thinking about this in advance, because  _ of course,  _ the most couple-y thing to do with someone is kiss. But whenever Nomura smiles at him or talks to him or laughs at his jokes, sure he feels happy but he never feels like… the thought seems foreign and a little wrong in his mind. He wants to justify it with  _ it’s not like that! _ But of course it is like that, they’re going out, what else is it supposed to be like?

“Err, no. We just… it never feels like we have to- or I never feel like I have to so… we just don’t.”

His eyes meet Akaashi, and yeah. There’s an answer to his question if anything. 

Komi pats his shoulder. “Well get on it, yeah? Maybe by the end of the week? I’ve got half a month’s worth of pocket money riding on it.” 

Coach blows the whistle and they drag themselves back to the court.

“You and Nomura-san. You haven’t been physically intimate?” Akaashi asks, catching up to Bokuto’s side. His eyes are trained on his tangled fingers. 

Bokuto picks a ball out of the cart so they can practice receiving drills. Even though Akaashi obviously heard the conversation, directly admitting it to him seems to reveal a little too much. Confessional, almost. 

“No,” Bokuto says, bouncing the ball up and down like a basketball. 

“If it’s acceptable to do so, may I ask why not?” Akaashi’s gaze follows the path of the ball; down,  _ tmp,  _ up. 

“It’s just. I don’t know, we’re just…” just what? Taking it slow? That doesn’t sound right, seeing as how easily they’ve fit into each other’s routines. How is it going to sound, when he admits he doesn’t feel like kissing the girl he’s going out with? And he’s supposed to, too! She’s already on the same side, there wasn’t any glass or any cuts and nobody got hurt, and that’s how the solid stone of guilt burrows into his stomach, because really at the end of the day this is all his fault isn’t it, but honestly, what kind of answer is Akaashi even expecting? The frustration wells up inside him and he bounces the ball extra hard. “I don’t know, ok? That’s just us. We’re just! Yeah. Is that so weird?”

_ Tmp tmp tmp _

The ball rolls across the floor, towards Akaashi. 

“No, not weird,” Akaashi says, bending down. He inspects the ball in his hands, like he’s looking for some sort of clue. “Just a little interesting.”

Bokuto doesn’t know what to make of that, because he’s aware that Akaashi has a vast library of meanings to the word  _ interesting _ , so he doesn’t bother to make anything of it. Just waits for Akaashi to send the ball over, keeping his arms in position and wishing it was warm enough to practice outside. 

Maybe he’ll challenge Komi to an arm wrestle after practice, just to make things even. 

***********

The sun thaws out the afternoon air, which is good news for Sarukui because it means he can eat his lunch outside while observing the tennis court filled with a gym class of third year girls. Of course, by pure coincidence alone and coincidence only, it just so happens to be the gym class of the girls volleyball team captain. 

Bokuto sits beside him on the bench, shaded by a shivering maple. Even if he’d have to listen to him hopelessly pine after Hina-san the whole period, Sarukui’s offer was practically irrefusable after Komi’s needling question during practice. 

Laboured breaths sound out from the court, and Bokuto watches Hina as she hustles after the ball, smacking it with her racket. She’s short and wired with muscle, her messy hair even more messily pulled into a ponytail and bright eyes burning; everything about her always seems on a fire of some sort. 

Bokuto knows her leadership style is different from his. Despite her loud appearance, she wrangles her team with a more silent intensity. Bokuto’s only talked to her a few times- for gym schedules and general updates- and each time he comes away feeling a little like jelly because if her silence made her anything, it made her  _ scary.  _

Beside him, Sarukui lets out a lovesick sigh. 

“Why don’t you ask her out?” Bokuto asks.

“Mmm?”

“Hina-san,” he clarifies, “I know you go to the same cram school and stuff and walk home together, so why don’t you just ask her out?”

“Hmm?” Sarukui stares at the court before glancing over to Bokuto. “Hey Bokuto, why’d you ask Nomura out?”

Well that’s pretty easy. He mentally glosses over the grocery list: Nomura’s smart, funny, gets along well with his friends, she- but that’s not answering Sarukui’s question, is it? Those are all reasons he likes spending time with her, but asking her out… he doesn’t know how to explain the sheet of glass at his fingertips and not wanting to let Akaashi bleed. “Ehh? Well, I take the question back! I guess you don’t need reasons.” 

He flashes his best and brightest eye-crinkling grin at Sarukui. 

Shoes scuffle against the floor of the court as Sarukui lets out a sarcastic laugh. 

“I think you do have reasons. Maybe not reasons for Nomura, but you have them. And since you were  _ so kind _ to ask me, yes I do have reasons for wanting to ask Hina out, and  _ of course,  _ I’d love for you to hear them.”

Bokuto checks out of the conversation as Sarukui recites the well-worn list of Hina’s major points of attractiveness, her major points of unattractiveness, and how even those were overwhelmingly endearing to Sarukui. The tree lets a leaf fall, and Bokuto guides it to the ground with his eyes before interrupting Sarukui. 

“So why don’t you ask her out?”

“I’m scared. Doesn’t mean I won’t do it; I will. Still scared, though.”

_ Fwing!,  _ as the metal rackets rap against the ball. 

“Do you think you could like somebody else?”

“Honestly Bokuto, whenever I imagined you admitting to your big gay crush, I never thought that  _ I _ would be on the receiving end.”

“Pfft, you wish you could have someone with arms like this crushing on you.” Bokuto flexes his bicep, the material of his blazer straining against the force. 

“Right.” Sarukui says, not even granting him a glance as his eyes stayed glued to Hina buzzing around the court. 

Bokuto clears his throat and tries again. “I just meant that, you know since you’re scared and stuff. Couldn’t you like… you know if you tried hard enough, couldn’t you like somebody else?”

“You really are dense, aren’t you?” Sarukui still isn’t looking at him, but he goes on, “When you like someone you get scared. There’s no way around it, bird brain, that’s just the way it is. Even if I could try my hardest to like someone else, I’d be scared of them too.” Hina wins her match, and Sarukui straightens, leaning against the bench to let his head loll and face upwards at the tree branches. “I don’t know how Hina feels, and before you go and interrupt, yeah I know I’ll never have an actual answer unless I confess. And if I find out she doesn’t like me, then yeah, I’ll get over her because it’s the respectful thing to do. But the thing is, right now, I don’t know. So even if your airheaded proposal did work -and it doesn’t- why would I try and like somebody else when I’ve got a shot with someone like her?”

Sarukui’s words trickle down Bokuto’s throat uncomfortably. They’re raw and jagged and each one falls down like an anvil. “So you don’t think you-or anybody- could try to like someone? In  _ that _ way?”

“No, Bokuto,” Sarukui’s hair bristles against the bench as he shakes his head. “Not when you already like someone else. And I think you already knew the truth to that question anyway.” 

Sarukui’s words start to curdle in Bokuto’s gut. 

“But if she rejects you, won’t it hurt? Won’t she stop walking home with you and stuff?” Bokuto asks, searching, searching,  _ searching, _ because the horrible thing about Sarukui is that he always makes sense, and Bokuto has to find the chink in Sarukui’s armor to make sure that his own is undamaged. 

“Yeah, probably. I’ll have a whole lifetime to get over it, so there’s that. But it’ll probably suck a lot and I guess that’s why I’m scared.” Sarukui closes his eyes and smiles lightly. “What sucks even more though, is that since first year I’ve had this annoying little bug in my head that keeps whining about pushing fear to the side, because what choice do I have than to believe I’ll succeed? Bokuto-itis, I think they call it,” he ends, nodding sagely. 

Bokuto grins, even though the chances of the final comment counting as praise are ambiguous at best. 

Sarukui tilts his head, finally meeting Bokuto’s gaze with unexpected gravity. “Besides,” he adds, voice sounding a little too much like when he’s detected a pattern in an opposing team’s plays, “I know Hina enough to like her, but that doesn’t mean we know each other that well. So if she were to avoid me afterwards or anything like that, she wouldn’t be losing out on much.” He lets his head roll back to face the top of the tree, light dappling over his face. “But my case is just mine. Everybody’s different. Sometimes there’s something to lose, and both people don’t want to lose it.” 

A breeze gently puffs against Bokuto’s face as he watches the girls pack up on the court. He thinks of night-cloaked walks home, eye roll-filled homework sessions, warm and silent lunches, and all of them are threaded together with something strong and unforgiving as it taps against the glass. Something to lose, huh? 

“Did you hear about Onaga getting confessed to the other day?” Sarukui asks, scattering away the mess of Bokuto’s thoughts. 

“The one where he made her cry by accident?”

“Mmmhmm, and she was a second year, too! Who would’ve thought his sweet ol’ long face would be such a lady killer. Think I passed by her when I was going to the bathroom after she got rejected and  _ man _ you should’ve seen the look she gave me, as if-” Sarukui rambles on, eliciting the occasional laugh and excited comment from Bokuto. 

Bokuto’s mind dips halfway into the conversation, the other half too focused on the way the tree slowly lets its leaves go, each one dropping without a worry about the fall. 

************

Evening practice had been long and gruelling, with a fatal conditioning session tacked on to it for extra measure. It’s not fair, Bokuto thinks, that what hurts the most is his brain. 

“Akaashi! What if we just don’t do training camps this year?” He shoves the notebook across the table, letting Akaashi take over with a red pen in hand.

Already correcting the page, Akaashi says, “Excellent idea, Bokuto-san. And I’m sure once we fail to make nationals, you’ll be very comfortable informing everybody that it was because their precious captain and ace thought it beneath him to draft permission slips.”

“You think I’m precious, ‘Kaashi?”

  
“Roughly the same level of precious as mosquito bites, bath mold, and expired yogurt,” Akaashi quips, drawing a particularly long strike through a sentence, as if for emphasis. 

Bokuto huffs but doesn’t move to reply. The clubroom’s weak light casts the area with a muted green tinge and washes out the dimension of Akaashi’s face, making him all serious eyebrows and straight mouth. 

Komi’s question still hasn’t worn off on Bokuto. It scratches at him even more as he stares at Akaashi, reminding him how strange the thought of kissing felt when he tacked it on to Nomura’s face, but how now, watching Akaashi’s fingers twirl the pen, it settles in his chest quite fittingly. He wants to say he doesn’t know what that means. 

The silence and Akaashi’s downcast eyes are very welcome, letting him have just an inch of breathing space. Watching him like this, scribbling and scratching away at Bokuto’s pathetic excuse of a permission slip, is strangely calming. He probably looks like this in class, too; back slightly hunched, brows drawn together, and his left hand resting on his knee in a necessitated show of politeness. Bokuto can’t be the only one who finds the sight enough to make his lungs pop.

Akaashi looks up for a moment to check the clock and dips his head back down. Calm and quiet. Bokuto knows Akaashi is far from emotionless, but it always seems like he puts his feelings in a little yard and makes sure none of them stray past the fence. Boktuo almost laughs out loud at the mental image of Akaashi in mud-stained overalls with a herding dog at his side. Has Akaashi ever felt like his lungs would pop?

“Akaashi have you ever liked anybody a lot?”

The words are out of his mouth before his throat can strangle them away. 

The pen stops scraping against the page. “I’m assuming you mean romantically,” and the clubroom light dims a notch as Boktuo nods. Akaashi sighs and starts twirling the pen again, eyes on the clock as he starts to reply, “In that case, yes. Perhaps I did not like all of them ‘a lot’, as you word it, but I have carried romantic sentiments for specific people at certain points in time.”

“That’s a lot of words to say you’ve had crushes, ‘Kaashi.”

  
“Ah, my apologies, I forgot your brain can only process ten words per minute on a good day.”

“Brevity is the soul of wit!” Bokuto grins.

“Don’t steal phrases you’ve heard Kuroo-san say just because you think they sound cool.”

Instead of whining, Bokuto asks, “Didja ever tell any of ‘em?”

Akaashi stiffens, the question appearing to have caught him by surprise. He lightly taps his foot against the linoleum, like he’s pumping the words out of his mouth. 

“No. No, I haven’t.”

Bokuto takes in Akaashi’s moon-round face and dark hair that looks like a feathery painting of ocean waves at night. “You’re really pretty Akaashi.” He notices as Akaashi’s fingers stop twirling the pen, opting instead for a white-knuckling grip. “I don’t think people would get upset if you told them.”

Akaashi’s foot stops tapping and he lays the pen on the notebook. His hands disappear under the desk, but Bokuto doesn’t need to see them to know that they’re knotting and unknotting with each other. 

“Bokuto-san, being physically attractive and a coward are not mutually exclusive.”

Akaashi couldn’t be scared of rejection, could he? He was calm and polite and never spoke too loudly and laughed at things that Bokuto didn’t even realize were jokes in the first place. 

Akaashi’s hands continue to weave together under the table, and the action seems to unravel something within him as he says, “It isn’t the fear of being inadequate, per say. I am aware that I am nothing brilliant, but never have I felt…” Akaashi’s visible struggle for words is a novel sight to Bokuto, “... too small. It’s a matter of when interactions progress, there is a line that is to be walked on, and having never walked on it before, I am overly conscious of the fact that I could overstep somewhere, or hold back too much somewhere else, so it is much easier to simply stay put.” 

Akaashi’s words ring familiar.

“Like a sheet of glass?” Bokuto asks. 

Akaashi furrows his brows before finally looking at Bokuto, and then unfurrows them. “Something like that, yes.” 

His hands continue to knot under the table and he continues, “It has never been much of an issue, as I have just told you that I haven’t really liked anybody  _ a lot _ . However, there was,” Akaashi tuts at himself, “ah no. There  _ is  _ one, who I like ‘a lot’.” Bokuto burns with sudden curiosity, but is too stunned with the sheer amount of words coming from Akaashi’s mouth to do anything. Akaashi doesn’t let him interrupt, continuing, “And because the feeling is so great, so was the fear. And it’s not as if this particular person has never taught me a lesson or two before, I just… I never expected that they would be the one to teach me that regret can hurt in innumerably more ways than fear.” 

For a second the light dims again, before glaring its greenish glow at full intensity. 

Akaashi brings his hands to tap on the notebook and slides it over to Bokuto. His posture snaps back to something less hunched as he says, “I expect all these corrections to be done by tomorrow. Otherwise, I’ll tell Konoha that you were the one who slapped his rear end in the showers.”

“I already told you, Komi tripped me over and it was an accident!”

  
“Well, if you finish all the corrections then we won’t have to discover how Konoha reacts to  _ accidents. _ ” 

Akaashi stands up and starts packing his things. Bokuto knows he can’t ask anymore questions, knows Akaashi has neatly tied up and packed away the conversation and placed it in a spot that Bokuto can’t reach. He scrunches his nose. 

“Don’t say it like I’m lying. My ass is better than his anyway, I could just slap my own if I wanted.” Bokuto stands and turns around to start packing his things, too. Akaashi doesn’t bother warranting that with a reply, if his silence is to be interpreted. 

Bokuto’s day has been disorienting. Komi’s question, Sarukui’s rant, Akaashi’s admission; they all sit heavily within him and push him on to his side, forcing him to lean harder against the glass. It shakes and creaks, laughing at him for something, laughing at him like he’s made a super stupid mistake, but not telling him what it is. 

He frustratedly shoves his pencil case into his bag. How is he supposed to fix something when he doesn’t even know what’s wrong? He lifts his bag and turns back around harshly.

Akaashi’s gaze, previously at some junction between Bokuto’s torso and legs, diverts itself back to check the clock. His face looks out of sorts- pink, like when they go to get barbecue and the heat of the grill forces the color onto his cheeks. The clubroom must be hot or something. That would also explain why Bokuto’s brain feels like it’s short-circuiting.

Akaashi opens his mouth hurriedly, “Uh-”

“Gah! I’m in a  _ dilemma,  _ Akaashi!” Bokuto interrupts, before herding him out of the clubroom and switching off the flickering light. 

The pink seeps out of Akaashi’s cheeks as Bokuto locks it up. “If the dilemma is whether or not to ask me to edit the essay you won’t shut your mouth about, the answer is no.”

“Don’t be silly ‘Kaashi, I haven’t even started that yet. And I’m being serious! A  _ big _ dilemma!” Bokuto tries to hold his brows and his mouth straight so that Akaashi can see that he’s being very serious and composed about all of this. 

“I see,” Akaashi hums out at the top of the stairs, turning to face him. “In that case, Bokuto-san, I trust you to handle it well.” And with that he descends. 

Akaashi’s words slot themselves into the knot in Bokuto’s mind and ease the tangles. Bokuto smiles and follows him, believing that maybe he’ll be able to think his way through this. 

  
  


A week later, Bokuto hands a stack of papers to Akaashi during lunch, and the latter sighs as he pulls out a pen and starts correcting a hastily written Japanese literature essay. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, akaashi was staring at his ass. 
> 
> I hope all of your March's are going well! I know things are rough with the honorary Coronaversary (baby turned one!!!), so if you're reading this (and if you're not), I hope you're managing to hang in there (:


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